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Show 644 MR. A. D. MICHAEL ON THE [Dec. 1 , to become empty once more. I then placed in the cells some dead Ants which I had soaked in carmine stain ; the next morning the alimentary canals of the Gamasids were all bright red, while the rest of their bodies was uncoloured. I repeated this several times with the like result, and on one occasion when a very clear Gamasid, which had lately changed from the nymph, had been supplied with a stained Ant and the cell then removed to the stage of the microscope, I saw the Gamasid mount on the body, plunge its trophi into it, and then I could plainly see the small streams of carmine liquid passing down the canal as the Gamasid sucked, and I afterwards dissected out the alimentary canals of some of the Gamasids and found them filled with red matter ; the ordinary contents of course are not of that colour. These Gamasids would undoubtedly feed on the dead body of any small freshly-killed insect which might be found in the nest. The Gamasid hereinafter referred to as Lcelaps vacua I also found would feed and thrive on the dead Ants, &c. ; but L&laps acuta I could not get to feed in a similar manner, and it did not live long in the cells. The above facts made it seem probable to me that the Gamasince were present either as scavengers, or else for the purpose of sharing the feast in the case of small insects killed by the Ants ; possibly the friendly conduct of the Ants points rather to the former than the latter conclusion. In the nests of the same Ant I found three smaller species of Lcelaps, none of which I could find elsewhere, and which, as far as I know, are unrecorded ; I propose calling them L. flexuosa, L. vacua, and L. acuta. The first-named is in one respect a singular creature, viz., as regards the mandible of the male. The mandibles of the Gamasince and Uropodince are usually chelae ; very retractile, and capable of being wholly withdrawn within the body. The two arms of the chela are often different, particularly in the male, one arm, oftenest the movable, having frequently some appendage or other complication, often of very strange form, but both arms are almost always directed forward. In the present species the fixed arm is most minute, a mere spike, while the movable arm is very long, horn-like, and doubly curved and undulated, both perpendicularly and laterally; so that the two mandibles cross and cannot be withdrawn into the body (fig. 6 a). In the nests of the same Ant, Camponotus herculeanus, I also found a handsome bright-crimson Uropoda belonging to the section with sculptured backs ; it was present in large numbers in one nest, and in small numbers in one or two others, and was found on the walls of the passages and chambers, and also, most abundantly, on the outside of the cocoons of such pupae of the Ant as were enveloped in a cocoon; there were often three or four Uropodce on a single cocoon. I could not ascertain that the cocoons were in any way injured, but the Uropoda appeared to get a thread or two of the cocoon loose, and this it held on to firmly, as well as I could ascertain, by holding it with the flattened femora of the first pair of legs. I never found any of the Uropodce either upon the adult Ants or their larvae or upon such pupae as were not enclosed in a cocoon. |